I Just Bought Running Shoes

I've been meaning to for a while. Nothing fancy, just your basic Payless Shoes sneakers.
If I get to the point where the quality of my shoe matters, I will have already reached my goal.

I used to be in real good shape - 195 pounds, riding twelve miles on my bike every day then
lifting weights at the gym. Now I weigh 230 and get out of breath walking up to the second
floor of my office.

For a little while back in Vancouver I was running up and down the steps at the Joyce SkyTrain station.
This was real good exercise, but I stopped when I moved to California. I walked several
miles a day for a while, but that stopped when I bought a car.

A while back I got an email from an old friend from UCSC. When he was a teenager
he climbed El Capitan in Yosemite. He also rode his bicycle from Santa Cruz to
Santa Barbara once, a distance of about three hundred fifty miles.

But he let himself get out of shape. His email was to inform me that he had
developed unstable angina - he's a few years older than I.
He was warning me that I might join him in that
someday, and urged me not to let it happen.

Sometimes I feel twinges of pain in my heart, and wonder if it's too late for me.

I'd rather cycle, but my bike is in storage in Halifax, and Bonita is too busy with
school to deal with shipping it.

What clinched my decision to finally buy running shoes though has been the way
I've been having such a problem with fatigue
after I get up - today I lay in bed for
several hours after waking up before I was able to work up the gumption to
actually get up, and then I was too tired to practice piano for a good couple hours.

I'm hoping that running will help me have more energy, and help with my sleep.
It has in the past.

Angela Bonilla, my piano teacher in Vancouver, is an avid runner. She advised me to run just a little bit,
then walk until I catch my breath, then run again, and so to work up slowly to running continuously. That's
what I'll do today. I'll just go around the block at first. When I can run all the way around I'll
increase the distance.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some running to do.

Read this essay online or reprint it at:http://www.warplife.com/mdc/books/vancouver-diaries/running-shoes.html

This is a chapter from The Vancouver Diaries:http://www.vancouverdiaries.com